Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy
by oh help
Summary: A collection of Dean/Seamus AUs. 6. Genderbend
1. Reduced to the Purest Form

**OTP AU Competition:** _We are at an art exhibition and we stand in front of a big abstract painting for a long time until you say very calmly: 'that's definitely a penis.' and we both start giggling and everybody's staring at us AU_

I may have been unaware that the prompt specified a painting until I posted this, oops.

* * *

What you love about abstraction is that it distills art down to its purest form. The arrangement of shape and color and form to affect the viewer, to create harmony or discordance. You like that meaninglessness can mean something.

Your professor doesn't see it that way.

The end-of-term project for Introduction to Sculpture is an abstract piece on the theme of identity. "I want you to think about how you define yourself, but also about how society defines you," he tells your class. "In my experience, the most profound work is born from a disconnect between those two ideas, of who you are and who you're expected to be."

It doesn't sound too hard until you start thinking about it. Your identity should be obvious, shouldn't it? But you realize that you've never really thought about who you are. You just sort of _are_ , and go with it.

"It seems like kind of a… _personal_ assignment, don't you think?" you muse in class. You've spent the last two days sketching and getting nowhere.

"Art is personal," your professor says. "If you aren't comfortable sharing, you might be in the wrong field." He's joking, but it scares you.

That evening you phone your sister to pretend you have things to do instead of working. "I haven't got an identity," you tell her. "My identity is boring."

"You're not boring," she says. "You're Dean."

"But what does that _mean_?" You sigh heavily into the receiver. "Who _is_ Dean?"

"You're nice." She pauses, considering. "You're good at drawing, er… You like sports?"

Maybe you really are in the wrong field, you wonder. Maybe you really don't have enough to say. "Do you think I could just do a self-portrait and be done with it?"

She laughs. "You _are_ boring."

The rest of your classmates begin to create and assemble as the week goes on, and by Friday you've about given up. You've got your head down on the table when your professor sits next to you and asks, "So what have you been thinking about for your piece, Dean?"

"I dunno. Nothing," you say.

"Really? Nothing?"

You shrug, ashamed.

He thoughtfully taps his fingers on his knee. "Well, you could try thinking about your experiences as a person of color. How has your blackness affected who you are?"

"Er…"

"You can think about it, it's okay. I'm just trying to get you started." He smiles. "Everyone has experiences that shape them. Even you."

"Okay," you say, trying to urge him away before he starts a conversation you don't want to have with him about sexual orientation or classism or whatever.

"I also think a piece from a perspective of masculinity would be interesting. You could think about the pressures and toxicity of male culture, and how you view yourself as a member of an oppressive class. That's something good for all men to consider."

For a long time you're speechless, but eventually manage to get out a weak, "Er, thanks."

"If you need any more help, that's what I'm here for," he says.

He goes to lean over the next student's work and you sit there, wondering if he actually meant to reduce you to a black dick or it just happened by accident.

Maybe you could just make that, you joke to yourself bitterly. At least it would be easy. You pick up your pencil, still joking of course, and amuse yourself sketching joke designs.

You look up the sort of diagrams they give school kids to teach them what the vas deferens is, appropriate the shapes and the lines, move them, pivot them, build them of wire and clay and paint, and in the end it's actually sort of beautiful. Unrecognizable as anything in particular, just the way you like it. You write your statement of intent, describing it as a representation of confusion or some shite, and turn it in. You are very pleased with yourself.

* * *

It appears that your didn't think this small bit of phallic rebellion all the way through.

The end-of-term show isn't really _crowded_ , but it's still more people than you'd prefer looking at your giant cock statue. And definitely not your _parents_ , sweet merciful lord, or your sisters, who ask you immediately, "What is that?"

"It just looks cool," you tell them. They all hum thoughtfully at it for a minute like they actually give a damn about abstract art.

As your family wanders off to find the refreshments table and some boy takes their place, you start to make an aimless circuit of the room. You're sick of these pieces. You've listened to presentations and critiqued them and care about them about as much as your little sisters do, but the professor is here and you want to look like you're doing something.

You return eventually to your own piece and just sort of hang around next to it. The boy is still there. He's looking at your sculpture intently with knit brows, and it makes you a little nervous. You glance over at the other side of the room to ignore him better until he speaks.

"That's definitely a penis," says the boy, suddenly and surely.

You close your eyes for a few seconds, wishing with all your might to spontaneously disappear.

He takes it as skepticism at his theory, or something, and becomes doubly determined to explain himself. "I'm serious," he insists. "It's a side view, don't you see? Those are the bollocks, and that's the… Well, the penis part."

You're almost angry at him for figuring you out. What the hell is he doing, anyway, trying to find hidden genitalia in student art? "If that's true," you say, careful to keep expressionless, "you've just spent quite a lot of time looking at a penis."

"I…" He bursts out laughing. "I guess I have."

He has a very good laugh. It makes you smile in spite of yourself.

"I'm Seamus," he says.

"Dean."

He points at the little card on the table with your name on it. "Like Dick Bloke."

"Er, yeah."

You can see the amusement on his face gradually turn to horror. "Oh my god, you're Dick Bloke."

"Yeah," you say again. "Dick Bloke, that's me."

"Oh, fuck." He fumbles around with his words. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

"I've probably just got some weird Freudian thing. What's the term for when you see penises everywhere?"

"You're fine." You glance around to make sure no one's listening. "That was kind of what I was going for, actually."

"You mean it's really a dick?" He looks delighted.

The closest few people look around at him and you lower your voice. "Don't tell."

His smile just keeps getting bigger. "But this was a student project, right? So you made a huge cock sculpture, and just…turned it in for grade?"

"Well," you mumble, "sort of."

"You're my hero." The boy—Seamus—crosses his arms and looks at you hard, appraisingly, and it makes you shiver. "I wish I could do that on a lab paper."

"Don't," you say for lack of anything intelligent.

"I promise." He looks down the row and swings out his arms. "Well, I've got a whole roomful of amateur art to get to."

You chuckle. "Most of it isn't profane. Not to disappoint."

"I'm sure I'll get through it somehow," Seamus says. "And maybe you'll still be around when I'm done?"

"I have to be here," you say. "It's my show."

"Good." He shoots you a cheeky grin and pats your back before moving on. "Nice cock."


	2. Can't See Me Loving Nobody

**OTP AU Competition:** Soulmate!AU

* * *

It happens when they bump together in the bathroom doorway. Dean apologizes quickly, because he's already gotten on Ron's bad side and doesn't want Seamus to be next, and just keeps walking. He doesn't think anything of the odd sensation burning around his wrist but to idly rub at it and shake it out. Only when he's at the sink unscrewing his toothpaste does Seamus shout at him, "Oi!"

Dean turns around and realizes that Seamus is still standing there, where he left him in the doorway. "I said I was sorry," he says, with a slight nervous waver.

But it is not about the stupid door thing. Seamus thrusts out his hand, palm up. "Do you have it too?"

Unsure what he's supposed to be looking at, Dean steps closer, until he notices the dark line of script drawn across his roommate's wrist. With a start he remembers the weird feeling around his own arm, just small tingles now. His hand flies to his sleeve and he lays out his hand alongside Seamus's to compare.

On his brown wrist the strange tattoo is less stark, but still there. He can read the words now that he's looking at it right side-up. _Seamus Finnigan._

"Did you do this?" he asks.

"Of course I didn't!"

"Well, it's your name—"

"And I've got yours, you idiot; don't you know what soulmates are?"

This stops him dead. As he's squinting at Seamus's wrist—it _is_ his name there, isn't it?—Neville appears behind them clutching his toothbrush. "I just woke up," he moans, trying to edge past them into the bathroom. "I really don't want to be late again today... _Wow."_

Seamus uncomfortably tucks his hand behind his back but there's no point. Neville gapes at them. "Are those _real_?"

It is apparent now that Dean is missing something very important. "Will someone tell me what's going on? _Soulmates_?"

The meeting takes place in the village of Hogsmeade, to accommodate the three of four Muggle parents who can't enter the castle itself. Dean has never heard of Hogsmeade. Seamus has. He goes on about things his cousin Fergus told him the whole walk down, and begs Professor McGonagall to stop for a bit of Honeydukes fudge.

Outside a place called the Three Broomsticks, Dean sees his parents. They look distinctly rumpled and a little stunned, the same expression they—and probably he—had in Diagon Alley. "Just took them by Portkey," Professor Sprout says cheerfully as they greet him with a shaky hug. "Don't worry. It can be a bit rough for first-timers, that's all."

"What's a Portkey?"

Nearby, Seamus's mother is fussing over her son too loudly for Dean to hear the answer. He sees her examine Seamus's wrist with wide, excited eyes. She searches the small knot of people, and Dean shifts nervously when he realizes she's looking for him.

"There will be time aplenty for introductions inside." Like he's some kind of magnet, every eye snaps to Dumbledore when he speaks. They bid goodbye to McGonagall and Sprout and he leads them into the warmth of the Three Broomsticks, some sort of pub. "Rosmerta was kind enough to arrange us a room upstairs."

Once there, he produces a set of squashy-cushioned chairs with a slow wave of his wand. The families tentatively sit. No one seems anxious to talk anymore. Being around Dumbledore, Dean notices, is an uncomfortable feeling of being scrutinized.

Dumbledore takes the chair beside the room's table and faces them. "I thank you all for coming."

"Er..." Dean's father speaks up beside him, but looks down the row for support before continuing. "I'm still not clear, exactly, why we're here."

"Ah." Dumbledore smiles. "You see, your sons have stumbled upon a rare, very old form of magic. Harmless," he specifies quickly, "but significant. I assume you are aware of the concept of soulmates, in some capacity at least?"

"Yes..." Dean's mother says hesitantly. "But do you mean to say that Dean, and another boy...?"

"With Muggles, it's usually a more romantic term," cuts in Mr. Finnigan to explain.

Dumbledore nods slowly. "Oh, I see." He steeples his fingers in his lap. "In the Wizarding world, 'soulmates' refers to a pair of souls that are, shall we say, each other's 'other half.' Each person has one, somewhere in the world, but due to the relatively small number of people that one has contact with in a lifetime, of course, it is very rare that they will meet."

"And Dean's is this boy? How do you know?"

"There is a magical reaction at the first touch of skin," he explains. "A mark is formed around the wrist."

Dean pulls aside his robe sleeve to show his parents. "See?"

"I don't see," his father says, confused. "There's nothing there."

"Muggles can't see soulmate marks, can they?" says Mrs. Finnigan. "It's like Dementors, they can feel it if it happens, but not see..."

"Dementors?" Dean asks curiously.

"We will leave that for your Defense Against the Dark Arts classes," Dumbledore says to him with a small chuckle before turning back to his parents. "But to address your concerns, the soulmate bond is not necessarily romantic. Your boys are young, of course, and there is no way of knowing how it will develop, but in fact, many of the known soulmate pairs are twins."

Dean glances over at Seamus at this, and they share a quick look of relief.

Dumbledore brings out a bit of parchment from his shimmering robe and conjures ink and quill. "There are two current students at Hogwarts who also share a soulmate bond. I will give you each the address of Arthur and Molly Weasley if you have any additional questions. They're very friendly and accommodating people, and I'm sure they would be happy to help." Finished writing , he duplicates the parchment and floats one over to each family. "And I'm always available, of course, for your concerns. It's been a pleasure."

They leave the Three Broomsticks and the parents depart, his own looking slightly reluctant to take another Portkey. He and Seamus are shepherded silently back to the castle. It doesn't seem right to talk to each other. Dean is reminded of play dates with his parents' friends' children when he was young, being forced to try and get along.

One of the Weasley twins winks at him over breakfast the next day and flashes his own wrist mark. _Welcome to the club_ , he mouths.

* * *

It is only when he's alone and particularly restless, usually in the safety of his curtains at night, that he'll think about Dean Thomas's name on his wrist. The tattoo encircles his arm like a bracelet, the name elegantly twisted from the loop on the tender inner skin. The "T" is inscribed over a split in his blue vein. Under the "D" he can feel his pulse.

Seamus loathes it. He loathes the delicate _girliness_ in the thin, curving line. He loathes what it represents. He isn't like the giggly little girls who run around touching every boy to see if anything happens; he never asked for this. He's sick of people pushing them together in the corridors like it was something cute, sick of his mother trying to have him over like they're married already, sick of stupid Dean Thomas and his stupid face.

But even in the midst of all this loathing, he catches Dean's eye sometimes. Someone says something stupid about them and he'll just have this _look_ on his face, the sort of look that betrays all the familiar resentment bottled up in him, and Seamus will feel… _connected_ to him in that instant.

He's the other half of his angry, little coin, the only one that can understand.

* * *

"Hermione?"

She is alone in the Common Room, monopolizing a table with three open books and a stack of notes. "I'm busy, Dean," she snaps.

"Oh," he mumbles, "er, sorry." It doesn't seem like a good omen for the conversation, but he presses on, too fast and awkwardly, before he can make himself regret this. "It'll only take a second; I was wondering if you'd go to the ball with me?"

Hermione looks up. Her eyes are wide and eyebrows drawn, like she's confused, and Dean wonders with a sinking heart if it'll be like Seamus and Lavender. He had hoped so much it wouldn't be; he chose to ask her because he thought she'd understand.

"That's alright," he says hurriedly, fighting embarrassment.

She shakes her head. "Oh, no, I'm really flattered, it's just that I've…already been asked."

"Okay," he says.

"I'm sorry."

Dean pauses, unsure whether the interaction is supposed to be over. It feels odd for something he worked himself all up for to end so quickly. "Erm…"

"Is there anything else?" Hermione asks.

"If you can't go with me…" he says tentatively, "could I ask your advice?"

She glances at her table piled with work for a moment, but gestures for him to sit.

He falls into the open chair. "Seamus asked Lavender to the Yule Ball today."

"Oh." Hermione raises her eyebrows, and he can tell she's pretending to care.

"She said it wouldn't feel right going with him, because of me."

" _Oh._ "

Dean heaves a sigh. The jokes and insinuations and little assumptions about him and Seamus have just gotten so _old_. He was raised to ignore taunts and teasing, but after all these years, he's sick of trying not to let it get to him. "I mean, we're not dating, we're never going to date, just because we're _soulmates_ doesn't mean we can't like other people—"

"I know," says Hermione soothingly.

"Yeah, you do. You've always stuck up for us." He looks away uncomfortably, still embarrassed by his earlier failure. "…That's why I asked you, you see. Because you get it."

She looks thoughtful for a few moments. "I understand, you know," she says. "Why people might be hesitant to get close to you two. After hearing so much about how a soulmate bond is supposed to be the strongest possible relationship, it's easy to feel like no matter what, you would be second best."

"That's stupid," Dean says immediately.

Hermione shrugs. "I said it was understandable, not right."

He sighs again.

"Do you want my advice?" she asks. "Just go alone. It doesn't matter."

"I know it's just a stupid school dance." He slumps forward over his elbows. "But I'm just tired of being _alone_ , you know?"

Dean knows he's not alone, that he'll never be alone, but even now that they've become close, sometimes Seamus just feels like not enough. He wants a circle of friends, like he used to have when he was younger. He wants to fall in love someday.

Maybe the soulmate bond just works by isolating. They're so drained by the emotional starvation and there's no one else who'll have them.

He and Seamus wear long sleeves and dance with Durmstrang girls who don't know them from Adam, and it's almost fun. But the best part of the night is still when it's over, when they lean together on the way back upstairs.

* * *

The tattoo is just that. There's no magic in it. All it is is a signifier that he's touched his other half. Seamus knows, but it comforts him to imagine that something links them, anchors his wrist to Dean's. He traces the name on his pale arm, doing his best to believe that Dean can feel it.

The rest of them fret over him, like he's suffering from some unimaginable tragedy outside their realm of understanding. It makes him sick. He hates when people act like he and Dean have something Better and More Profound, when they undervalue their own relationships in comparison.

Like Ginny says to him, "I don't know how you do it. I feel like I'm going to go mad not knowing if they're alright, and we're not even soulmates."

"Well, so what?" he says, too roughly but not sorry. "You love 'em, doesn't matter if you've got stupid marks to prove it."

They all have their tattoos. Ginny wears Ron's maroon mittens, Hannah keeps a Muggle book that Justin lent her in her bag. Even Hogwarts keeps the beds of the ones who're gone, like somehow they'll know, wherever they are, that they're still wanted.

"Do you know," says Neville quietly across the empty beds at night, "what happens if, er, your soulmate dies? Would you know?"

"I don't know," Seamus replies.

After that he wakes up every morning more afraid than before. He has to check first thing whether Dean's name has scarred over, or whether it's gone.

* * *

After the war Dean finds himself obsessed with being normal. He shies away from magic: that power, that potential, makes him nervous. When it's really bad he can feel it flowing in him, crackling up and down his veins like he's a battery. He doesn't want to be like this. He wants to be normal, to go to Uni and get a job and meet Muggle girls and not have war flashbacks in his dreams sometimes.

He can find a flat outside of Magical London, take classes and make new friends. He can do the dishes by hand if he really wants. But the only magic he can't escape—that he doesn't want to—is that which bonds him to Seamus. That magic is the greatest comfort. After the last year, having him within arm's reach is the normal that Dean needs most.

Normal years pass. Evenings spent watching television and mornings reading the newspaper. He flirts and goes to clubs and sleeps with Muggles, but relationships are like trips abroad. He always ends up coming home.

"It's a curse," he says drunkenly to Seamus the night his girlfriend leaves him. "I can't love anyone like I love you."

They've seen George Weasley waste away since he lost his brother, his soulmate, and it makes the whole business seem a lot more sinister. The bond feels more and more like a trap. It's unfair, so monumentally cruel that their health and happiness be this tied to someone else's.

"I don't know about soulmates," his mother tells him, "but that's how love is. It's unfair and it's hard to care so much, but you have to put your trust in someone to care about you back."

He wonders on the sofa with Seamus in the evening, their feet entwined on the center cushion, maybe that's what the soulmate bond is. A given trust, a promise, to always care and always love.


	3. It's Like They Made it Just for Me

**OTP AU Competition** : Fairytale AU - Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Some kind of complicated medieval fairytale kingdom AU where Homenum Revelio must not exist yet and Seamus is a Muggle forest hermit apparently.

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom ruled peacefully by a benevolent king.

Since the beginning of recorded history, the palace school had trained young students who showed the gift of magic. Those who were sent to the palace grew to use their talent for the benefit of all, becoming healers, workers, artisans, protectors, much-needed and much-revered members of the community. The old and noble families with the magical gift prized it. They cultivated it in their bloodlines, turning magic into an honorable heritage. But not all who possessed the gift were born to parents who possessed it too. The palace's students came from all walks of life, from non-magical peasant families to the royal line itself.

One student, a boy of modest means yet incredible talent, became interested in the darker applications of magic. How to gain at the expense of others, how to control, how to kill. Such things were not taught at the palace, but he uncovered old stories and spellbooks, researched ancient dark spells and experimented with his own. As he grew into a man he grew more and more obsessed. Armed with such powerful and unknown magic, he could become immortal. He could rule. The man shed his old name and began to call himself Lord Voldemort. His followers would call him the Dark Lord.

He took advantage of the grievances of the old and powerful families to gain support. They were tired of children from non-magic families being treated as equal to those with generations of the gift behind them, tired of those without magic being treated as equal to those without it, tired of the too-soft king. He promised to represent their interests if—when—he rose to power, accusing non-magic born of stealing their talents, preaching magical superiority. He accrued a devoted ring of followers, many from the most influential families in the kingdom.

When he was able, when he was ready, he attacked the palace. Many fought bravely in its defense, but dark magic of that caliber was a threat for which they were woefully unprepared. The royal family were executed publicly by the killing curse. With this exhibition of his power, Voldemort took control.

Thus began the New Reign.

* * *

In a forest on the kingdom's western border, a young man hid behind a tree.

His name was Dean Thomas. In his former life he was part of the Royal Guard and a friend of Prince Harry, whom he had learned to use his magic alongside at the palace school. But in the months since the coup, he had been forced to flee the palace. He was the first in his family to show a magical gift, and under the Dark Lord's reign, his choices were few. Dean could be imprisoned or he could try to run, and he chose to run.

Frankly, he hadn't expected to last this long. He was a city boy, used to at the very least three square meals and a semblance of security. The constant fear, that any second he could be found, was draining. He was almost ready to just give up. Hunters hired by the new government had been following him for days, and he could feel his time slipping through his tired fingers.

Hiding here was just a weak last effort. Dean leaned against his tree and listened, waiting.

He heard, not footsteps, but a creaking sound just past the closest trees, followed by the unmistakable gentle thud of a shutting door. His panic was too overwhelming to wonder about the strangeness of it. He soon heard the footsteps he had been expecting and reached for his wand, but paused when the person began to whistle.

Careful to keep himself covered, Dean held aside a branch to look through. He breathed out softly in relief. Hidden among the trees and brush stood a tiny house, half grown-over with ivy. He waited for the man who had just come out of it to disappear from sight, and then he made a very quick and possibly very stupid decision.

He'd become more familiar than he'd have liked with breaking into homes in the last month. They kept better food than he could catch or make on his own. The one shelter in the middle of the woods would probably be the first place hunters would look, but perhaps his last meal as a free man would be half-decent. Dean stepped tentatively between the trees, pausing a moment before he would be out in the open, and flew across the clearing to the house's door.

Inside it was very small, one room with a kitchen, a bed, and a great deal of clutter. He was drawn immediately to the table upon which sat a steaming pot. He'd never considered the scent of warm oats to be particularly inspiring, but here it felt like a miracle.

If the spoon hadn't been sitting in the pot he probably would have eaten it with his hands right there. Dean gulped the porridge down though it burned his mouth.

Once he was finished, he knew he should leave. Early on he had been concerned with repayment for things he stole but now he had no money and fewer morals, and all he could do was get far away before anyone noticed something was gone. But this house was so warm and empty and here. If just for a moment, Dean ached to rest. He fell heavily into a kitchen chair.

The seat split beneath him and he swore, louder than he'd intended to. He waited for a moment, holding his breath in fear that he'd been heard. When no one came bursting in to arrest him he rolled slowly out of the chair bits and whispered, " _Reparo_ ," the least he could do.

After that he knew he should run, but part of him couldn't pull away from this last little oasis of comforts. He wanted to just stay here with the roof and cupboards and bed. And _oh_ , the bed… He hadn't slept in a bed in what felt like ages. Giving in an inch to the temptation, Dean sat lightly on the mattress. It was heavenly soft. He brushed a hand across the woolen blanket and tried to remember what it felt like to sleep beneath one, or to rest his head on a real feather pillow.

It couldn't hurt, not just for a second...

Dean wrapped himself in the bedcovers and was very quickly swallowed by sleep.

* * *

Just before midday, Seamus Finnigan returned to his house with a pailful of berries to find a stranger asleep in his bed.

He set his pail on the floor as quietly as he could so as not to wake the intruder, intent on keeping the upper hand. Sometimes he got birds or rabbits inside, which he could just sort of shoo out by keeping the door open and making a lot of noise, but this was the first time he'd ever found a person. It felt like a significantly bigger problem because people, they had reasons for doing things. Seamus picked up a broom from the corner in case he had to hit them.

"Oi," he said softly. The dark head on his pillow didn't stir. Seamus gripped the broom tighter and repeated, more forcefully, "Oi!"

There was a rustle of blankets, and he found himself looking into the panicked face of a young man about his age. They stared at each other for a long second, frozen still, and then the stranger seemed to remember what he was doing. He lunged for the bedside table, but Seamus was closer. He snatched up the thing on the table before the man could get there.

Seamus examined the long, thin object in his hand and looked back at the man in surprise. "This is a wand," he said. "You have the gift."

The stranger just looked back at him.

"Erm..." mumbled Seamus. "Who are you, then? What're you doing in my house?"

"I'm sorry," said the stranger. Maybe Seamus just couldn't tell with criminals, but he sounded genuinely sorry. "It's just been a long time—"

"What, since you broke into someone's house?"

"Since...a bed…"

Seamus then noticed his dirty clothes and gaunt body. He ran his thumb over the man's wand curiously. It all fit with the things he'd heard, which he'd been glad to be so far from. "You're one of the ones they're after."

The stranger's face toughened. "So are you going to turn me in?"

"What? Of c—"

Someone knocked loudly on the door. Seamus's voice failed midsentence.

"Get in, er—" he dragged the stranger out of bed and ushered him over toward the wall. "Get in the wardrobe," he whispered, "quickly, go!" The wardrobe door wobbled, creaked, and came to rest behind him. Satisfied, or enough as he could be, Seamus opened the house door onto two rough-looking armed men.

"Hello?" he said.

The large man made a gruff, dismissive sound, obviously having no patience for pleasantries. "We're looking for a fugitive."

"Oh." It was all Seamus could do not to look back toward his wardrobe. He forced himself to frown in concern. "Around here?"

"We've been tracking him two days. Thinks he can hide in these woods."

"Well, I haven't seen anyone near these parts," said Seamus. He glanced between the men. "What does he look like? I'll let someone know if he turns up."

They hesitated for a long time, looking at each other with raised brows and at him with narrowed eyes. Seamus clenched his teeth behind his smile. It had been a risk—was he being too helpful? There was a line, of course, between normally accommodating and over-the-top, and he didn't deal enough with these folk to know where it was.

"Tall," the small man barked eventually. "Dark skin."

Seamus nodded. "Shouldn't be too hard to spot, then."

"Remember, we're working for the safety of the community," said the large man. It sounded not unlike a threat.

"Of course you are," said Seamus.

Fugitive-less and looking disappointed, the two men turned from his door and left. He slammed the door shut behind them and hurried to the wardrobe. The stranger fell out of it ungracefully. Seamus helped to stand him up.

"Thank you," said the man.

Seamus bit his tongue, tempted to make an offer but unsure. He wasn't one to get mixed up in trouble, but he also wasn't one to turn away those in need. "You can stay here, if you like," he said quickly. "While they're looking."

The man scoffed. "Where, in the wardrobe?"

"No," said Seamus, "I'll make a place on the floor. For me to sleep, of course. I'll suppose you've done enough of that."

"Thank you," breathed the stranger again, and it just then occurred to Seamus that he ought to ask his name.

"It's no trouble," he said. "I could do with company anyway. I'm Seamus, so you know."

The stranger smiled an odd, partial smile. "Dean."

"Well, Dean." Seamus reached out to shake his bony hand. "Don't make me regret this."


	4. The Sun Rises in the East (Part 1)

**OTP AU Competition** : The Next Door Neighbor

There were meant to be two more summers after this, but I just couldn't swing it before the deadline. I really liked them and what they added to the story, though, so I'll post a continuation as the next chapter when I finish. Maybe I'll combine them into one chapter after the judging.

* * *

 **1991**

Seamus is eleven when he and his mother move into the blue house. She won't tell him exactly what his da did wrong. He assumes it was him that did something wrong, that's how his family has always been: Da does something and Mam finds to be wrong, somehow.

He gets the second-floor bedroom. In his old house he slept in the loft but this house hasn't got one, nor has it got a garden or a climbing tree. It seems like a house for poor people, he thinks. (It's some time before he realizes that they _are_ poor.)

Mam doesn't go out and meet the neighbors. She leaves the house for work, and when she comes home she just stays inside.

Seamus stands at her doorway as she's reading in bed. "I'm bored," he says. "There's nothing to do here."

"Use your imagination," she replies.

"I can't."

"Then clean your room."

"My room _is_ clean," he reminds her. "We just moved in."

"Seamus Gabriel," she snaps, "can't you see that I'm resting?"

He watches television and when there's nothing on he sits in his bedroom and looks through all his old books that he's read too much. His window just faces the wall of the gray house next door, and another window with cream-colored shutters that never open. It feels like the sort of place you would use if you wanted to kill a person by draining the happiness straight out of them.

"Don't be dramatic," says his mother.

It is a week until he wakes up to find the other window's shutters are open. From his window he can see part of a door and part of a football poster. He watches the room, waiting for someone to move around or open the door, but no one does, so he goes downstairs and has breakfast.

That evening when the lights of the room next door are turned on, the sudden illumination draws Seamus's eye around and he looks straight into the face of another boy about his age. They stare at each other for a few seconds. The boy pulls up the glass of his window and peers at him curiously through the screen.

"Did you just move in?" asks the next-door boy.

"Yeah," says Seamus.

"I'm Dean," says the boy.

"Hi," says Seamus.

What Dean says next is so forward and matter-of-fact that it surprises him, makes him wonder if he can read his mind. "Some of us are going to the park tomorrow, do you want to come?"

It happens sometimes that all you need to be friends is persistence and proximity. He looks forward to meeting on the Thomas' front steps every day he can, at first because he has nothing else to do and eventually because he enjoys Dean. They go to various nearby landmarks. Dean seems to like showing off his city, and he has stories for everywhere: what his friend's father said at a particular intersection, what his sister did by the river.

Other days they take Dean's three sisters to the park, walking there in a line like ducklings, Seamus as the one odd, freckled duck. The neighborhood kids play football when enough people happen to show up, which is almost always. They've all got some kind of unspoken understanding about what to do on summer days. Seamus feels like he's been enveloped into a culture, and he is ecstatic.

One day after about a month, they end up at his house. They come in laughing at some joke. "This is Dean," he says as they kick off their shoes in the entry. His mam smiles broadly. She doesn't do that so often anymore.

 **1992**

Seamus is twelve when he starts making meals for himself and his mam, because if he left it up to her she would sleep through dinnertime and he would starve, probably. Usually it's easy things. Boxed noodles, microwave dinners, stuff in tins. He isn't very good at cooking, beyond measuring out teaspoons of things for cakes when he was little for the chance to lick the spoon.

His mam doesn't seem to care much what she eats, but he finds himself oddly proud of his spaghetti. It even makes him entertain the notion of being a chef. Something that gives him this sort of satisfaction is something he'd like to do with his life. He riffles through the one cookbook he can find in the house and manages to scrape together some real from-scratch food that's pretty okay. He arranges his chicken and his lasagne on plates like it's being served in a restaurant, takes it to Mam on one hand sometimes like a proper server and it makes her laugh.

He loses track of the bacon on a Saturday morning. It's the timeliness of cooking that eludes him, how things need to be done at certain times or else they'll not be cooked enough or they'll burn. He needs to keep his own schedule; prefers things that either get done in an instant or wait for him to poke around in the fridge without going up in flames.

The smoke detector starts to scream and Seamus is frozen in panic. It feels like he stares at the fire for ages, helpless and tight-chested afraid, before his mam barrels downstairs and throws the pan lid over the burning oil.

Relief loosens him. He doesn't know how he'd get on without his mother.

She hugs him fiercely tight for just a second and lets go, checking his face for any horrific burns. "I'm fine," he mumbles softly.

But she doesn't seem at all grateful that he's fine by the time he says so; on the contrary she seems like she'd like to strangle him. "I can't _believe_ you'd be so careless!" she shouts. "You _idiot boy_!" She paces around, not even looking at him, and he wants to disappear when he realizes she probably can't stand to. "You could've been killed, you could've brought down the house—and you just stand there like you're stupid, just _looking_ at it—what if I hadn't been at home, what then!? What if—"

Seamus doesn't really choose to run, but his body lurches away anyway, stocking feet pounding heavily on the linoleum and the concrete of the front walk.

A couple of the Thomases are on their steps looking concerned. The smoke detector's screeching can still be heard outside, and Seamus doesn't think he can handle the ringing in his ears for a second longer. He brushes past them into the gray house. Dean follows on his heels. "Seamus? Seamus!"

In Dean's bedroom, Seamus hunches his shoulders toward the wall, away from his friend. "I can't do anything but screw up," he spits at his feet, seething and shivering like something about to explode.

"But what happened, mate?" asks Dean. "Is everyone alright?"

Seamus is too busy not crying to answer, keeping his eyes open wide so they dry out and sting. Weakly, he kicks at one of the legs of Dean's bed. He's frustrated, but he's still in someone else's house, after all.

"Okay," says Dean. "Whatever."

Calmly, he puts an arm around Seamus and that cracks open the stupid emotional dam. He shakes with tears against Dean's thin chest. Being held like this makes him feel better in spite of himself—it's a dumb, inappropriate thing to do but it almost feels like he's bleeding into Dean, like if he's close enough for long enough he'll become him, and the thought is comforting.

"This is kinda queer," he mumbles. "I'm sorry."

Dean exhales hard through his nose, like a laugh, or maybe a sigh.

 **1993**

Seamus is thirteen when Dean is grounded for failing school, or something. He doesn't like to talk about it. They've never really talked about school, actually, in all the time they've been friends. Even _at_ school they didn't talk about school. Ignore it and it'll go away, you know.

He always just assumed Dean got good marks, because he's _smart_. He's quick and sharp and always knows the best joke to make about anything that happens. But this makes him realize just how often he's heard Dean say "I don't care" like it's the end of the conversation. He doesn't do things he doesn't want to, he doesn't listen to opinions he doesn't value.

The Thomas girls bob along the street without the biggest duck and it makes him sad, even though they're cheerful.

"I didn't _fail school_ ," says Dean through the window, secretly while their parents are at work. "I'm not repeating the year, I just, y'know, didn't do good."

"But _how_?"

He shrugs. Seamus is infuriated for a moment by his apathy; it's the straw and he's the god damned camel.

"So what?" says Dean heatedly. "So what I've got bad grades, you're acting like that makes me a bad person. It's all just made up, it's the system—"

"Look, I'm not saying what they think of you in school means anything," Seamus interrupts, "but people like us…" (and by this he means "poor people") "We've got to work, or else we'll have nothing. That's just how it is."

"Fuck how it is," grumbles Dean.

He looks tempted to retreat back into his room and Seamus leans out the window a little desperately. "I get it, I get it, but…" He fumbles with the sentiment. "I want you to have…things."

Dean doesn't say anything, but he doesn't leave his window either.

"How about we do homework together?" Seamus suggests.

"Yeah, sure." Dean snickers softly. "If I wanted to do that I'd get someone loads better than you."

"Screw you," Seamus replies. But they're grinning now, in understanding. Affectionate insults is a game he knows how to play.

The thought that Dean cared enough for him to listen rises unexpectedly as he tries to sleep that night. Flattered, but embarrassed, he quickly pushes it away.


	5. Might Have Seen Fit to Warn Me

**OTP AU Competition** : _I'm so drunk and ring your doorbell at 3am because my ex used to live here_ AU

* * *

Dean woke feeling heavy. He lay leaden in the mattress, contemplating action but unable to make his fuzzy brain move his muscles. Only when the morning shone too red in his eyelids could he summon the strength to roll over.

He breathed in the unfamiliar scent of the pillow and gratefully sank in deeper. It was rare that bad nights ended this way, sleeping somewhere pleasant. Perhaps someone had taken pity on him. From what he remembered he'd have been in no state for sex, so how he ended up in a strange bed was somewhat of a mystery.

His shoes had been taken off, but he was still in his jacket and jeans. The seams and folds had imprinted in his skin while he slept and he shifted weakly under the covers to move them loose. He stretched his stiff body. Flexed his toes, straightened his arms, and finally, opened his eyes. As he pushed himself upright his throbbing head stopped him for a moment. He squinted at the bedroom, bathed in soft light through the sheer curtains. It seemed familiar but not quite, in a way he couldn't place.

He turned the creaky bedroom doorknob and shuffled out in his socks. The house was mismatched and cluttered, frames and posters on the walls at random, things piled on the furniture. It didn't seem to be the home of anyone he knew. The room looked empty, and Dean glanced back down the hall to make sure no one had followed him. Maybe he could get out without anyone noticing. He tiptoed back toward the bedroom to get his shoes, wincing as the cheap floorboards squeaked under him.

There was a sudden rustling noise in the sitting room and Dean just about had a heart attack. He froze. It had looked like the sofa was just covered in blankets, but a mussed, light brown head poked above the back and spun around toward him.

"Oh! Oh, shit, you're awake." The man shook himself free of his cocoon of blankets and stumbled away from the sofa. "You can go ahead and, I don't know, shower if you like. I could make toast?"

Dean hung back cautiously in the doorway. "Who are you?"

"I'm Seamus," said the stranger. "Who are you?"

"What do you mean, who am I?" Dean replied in incredulity. "You let me in your house."

Seamus shrugged. "Yeah, well, I think I got some of the story but I didn't catch your name."

He disappeared into the kitchen and Dean followed, horrified but curious. "What?"

"You just showed up at my door, mate. You were kinda confused, and really pissed, so it didn't seem right to just shove you off."

He started to say "What?" again but it hit him then, what he'd been thinking of the night before. Looking around he recognized the skeleton of her house behind the different furniture: the tiny kitchen, the mantel where she kept that painting of the beach, the wall they shagged up against that one time.

"Oh, god," he moaned. "I'm so sorry…"

"Don't worry about it, we all have bad nights." One corner of Seamus's mouth pulled up in a brief sympathetic grimace. "Here, have some water; your mouth must taste absolutely foul." He caught the confused look on Dean's face and shook his head. "You were sick."

"In your house?" gasped Dean, burning with humiliation.

"In the toilet, it was alright. Then you fell asleep on the bathroom floor, though, so I had to move you."

Dean glanced back toward the bedroom and felt his face warm. "You didn't have to give me your bed."

"Well, it's only polite."

He was impressed with the trust Seamus had placed in some rando who could have stolen everything he owned while he slept. He must have seemed _really_ pathetic. "My name's Dean," he mumbled, quietly accepting the glass of water Seamus pushed into his hands.

"Dean," repeated Seamus. "Good morning, Dean."

He grunted weakly in reply.

Seamus busied himself opening cupboards and pulling out plates. Dean sipped his water and waited nervously to see if he had anything else to say.

He did. "If you don't mind me asking," Seamus began innocently as he separated out bread slices from the loaf, "who's Ginny?"

Dean closed his eyes and breathed out a slow sigh. All the most profoundly embarrassing bits of his personal life were Ginny-related, and he'd gone and involved some stranger. "We used to date," he said, as vaguely as possible. "She lives here, see."

Seamus chuckled awkwardly, gesturing with a jerk of the head around at the redecorated kitchen. "Well, she hasn't for months."

"Apparently."

"She didn't tell you?"

"I suppose I get the message," said Dean.

"She might have seen fit to warn me," said Seamus. "Mad exes coming round at three in the morning, I didn't sign on for that." From the look on his face he still found the whole situation highly amusing and Dean hid his face in his glass, frustrated that his trainwreck of a love life had become something that might happen on _Friends_.

Seamus sobered a little, noticing his discomfort. "Look, I mean… Sorry. "

"I hope she didn't…not tell me to _avoid_ me, you know," said Dean. It spilled out of him before he could think better of it. Seamus had opened the stupid dam of Ginny angst. "I mean, I don't do things like this _often_. Last night, I just...got to missing it. Her."

"Sad drunk?" Seamus asked, his smile more kind now than entertained.

Dean scoffed. "You could say."

"I'm sure it's nothing," said Seamus. "If you're not together anymore, she's really got no obligation to keep you updated on her address, that's all. No need to take it personally."

"I don't know," said Dean. "She really doesn't like me much."

"Well if that's the case, then fuck her," Seamus replied breezily as the toast popped up. "Come here, do you take jam? I don't know what kind I've got."

Dean watched him search the refrigerator, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. "Thanks," he said.

Seamus piled three jam jars into his free arm. "Happy to help."


	6. A Woman's Hair is her Crowning Glory

"I wish I had your hair," said Dee. She said it not directly to Shea, but up into the room, just throwing it out there.

"My hair's shit," said Shea.

The sound of Dee's soft pencil gliding over her paper filled in the silence. Shea loved the sound. Gentler than a quill's scritching, and emblematic of this sort of contentedness.

"Well, I'd grow it long," said Dee.

Shea turned her head over to look at her friend, who wore her thick clouds of hair in two stubby braids. "Why don't you grow your own hair long?"

"I hate having to mess with it," Dee muttered.

Craning her neck up off the bed, Shea could see her shading in her drawing's hair smooth and soft. "I think it would be pretty," she said.

"Put your head back down," said Dee.

It made Shea feel strange and tingly to be drawn, though she knew Dee just used her as a free model. The process was so oddly intimate: the eyes and graphite tracing every feature of her face, every curve and angle of her body.

"Why are you drawing me?" she asked.

Dee shrugged. "I like the way you're laying."

"Okay," said Shea, turning her head and looking back up at the four-poster canopy, trying to preserve whatever genius she'd accidentally done. "How do you decide what to draw?"

"Dunno," said Dee. "Whatever I think's beautiful."

For just a moment something in Shea fluttered. To be thought beautiful by Deanna Thomas's eye seemed more meaningful than by just any old person. Then she thought better of it. "That's crap," she said. "I've seen you draw Snape before."

"A lot of stuff is weird beautiful," said Dee, and Shea didn't understand at all.

* * *

They were alone in the dorm after the funeral. Her hair came down to her waist now and Dee carded her fingers through it, brushed and braided it, soothing her.

"Does your mum want to leave soon?" Dee asked.

"As soon as I'll let her," Shea said. Dee smiled a little, and it must have come across unspoken that she wouldn't let her for a while.

"I'm surprised she'll let you out of her sight," said Dee. "Now that everything's going to go to shit."

"She trusts you," said Shea.

"I'm glad."

Dee leaned forward and pulled Shea into her, holding her back against her chest, face buried in her hair. Shea couldn't help but close her eyes.

She didn't see Dee again after they parted.

* * *

Her hair streamed out behind her as she ran and absurdly, she thought that Dee would find this beautiful. Weird beautiful, scary beautiful. Her feet fell heavy on the stone floors. She ran like she'd never run.

"You can't get away," gasped Amycus Carrow, clearly tiring. "Not this time."

Beside her, Neve stumbled. Shea felt her heart stop. Ducking a stunner, she threw out a hand for Neve to grab, to help her scramble to her feet. Almost there, if she could get up quick enough they'd be there—

Her head was jerked backward and she cried out in pain. "I've got you now," cackled Alecto. Shea's chest froze as she tugged on her hair for good measure, dragging her to the ground.

And then " _Diffindo_!" Neve shouted and Shea felt her arm seized and she was running again. Running down the seventh-floor corridor, where the door they needed was waiting for them.

Mirrors lined the walls of the Room of Requirement. Shea lifted her hands to her hair, sliced off at an angle at the nape of her neck.

She wept, and Neve didn't understand at all.

* * *

When Dee made love to her she kissed the exposed back of her neck. "You are so beautiful," she whispered. Even with her hair short, she whispered it.

"I kept it long because it made me think of you," said Shea. They lay in bed, sated and heavy, like they were bleeding into it.

"We're more than hair," said Dee.

"I know it was silly," Shea muttered, staring up at the ceiling.

Dee breathed out slow. "I figure I think of you too, when I take my braids out. I remember you telling me I looked pretty."

"You do."

"But there are other important things," said Dee. "I think about you then too. When I think about my future. Or times like this. This…"

"Contentedness," said Shea.

"That's it." Dee sat up, her bare skin lit up in the moonlight. "Do you mind if I draw you?"

Shea smiled. "Not at all."


End file.
